The Patient Assassin

by Anita Anand

  As the crowd panicked and ran, news of the shooting scattered with them and pockets of violence flared up around the city quicker than the troops could be deployed to deal with them. Within a matter of an hour, Delhi was in the grip of a major riot. At the town hall, a large crowd gathered near the Western Gate, where the additional superintendent of police, a man named Jeffreys, ordered his men to open fire. Bodies fell by the dozen. Jeffreys would later say that he had ordered his men to fire into the depth of the crowd because the front row of the crowd was ‘simply thick with boys’.12 Not being able to see who they were shooting, and therefore not knowing whether they were armed, or indeed even adults, Jeffreys nevertheless insisted that his orders had been humane. His superiors later congratulated him on his ‘great restraint . . . in a very sudden and awkward situation’.13

  When news of the shootings reached Gandhi, he reacted with horror. This was not meant to happen. This was not what he had planned. He blamed the British for the heavy-handed policing that he was convinced had precipitated, and even provoked, the violence. It was a ‘slaughter of the innocents’,14 he said, and he vowed not to let it go unanswered.

  Gandhi declared that the entire country would show its solidarity with the fallen seven days after the Delhi shootings. The day would be called ‘Black Sunday’. It would become one of the greatest general strikes the world had ever witnessed.

  All around Punjab, illegal handbills were printed off in their thousands, brazenly in defiance of the Raj. Ink barely dry, boys in short trousers grabbed bundles and were sent scurrying to every corner of the city. Gandhi-ji needed them and they spread the word. 6 April would be the day of reckoning, when all India would say ‘no more’ to the British. After the shootings in Delhi, there was even more impetus behind this day of action. If they sang with one voice, the British would have to listen.

  There is no way to know if Udham Singh carried some of those pamphlets, but if, as some say, he was in the city at that time, it is likely that he was involved.15 The ‘Black Acts’ had motivated men with less of a grievance than Udham. The Ghadars had already used him as a leaflet boy, so there is no reason to believe that he would not have helped spread the word for Black Sunday, too.

  The anti-British resentment reached its highest point in Punjab at the time of Gandhi’s call to action. Not only did people object to Rowlatt, but a post-war hike in taxes was squeezing the province, too. Punjab had already paid the Raj in blood; there was little appetite to pay in coin as well. In addition, new ordinance banning the sale of ‘platform tickets’ to Indians was also causing a level of fury that astonished the authorities. It effectively cleared Indians from their own train stations, preventing them from receiving or sending off their loved ones. The thought of women and children, as well as the elderly, struggling off trains and across densely crowded platforms enraged the family-oriented Punjabis on the deepest level.

  Rail travel was indispensable to most urban Indians, and nowhere more so than Amritsar, where people travelled to and from Lahore regularly. The reaction was angrier than anything Miles Irving, the district commissioner, could have predicted. Black Sunday had every sign of being much bigger than Gandhi’s first satyagraha.

  BOMBAY, 6 APRIL 1919

  The first rays of sun crept along the sands of Chowpatty to reveal thousands hoping to catch a sight of the Mahatma. Still weak from the fevers that had gripped him for months, Gandhi appeared at exactly eight o’clock, as promised. Leaning his skeletal frame on two volunteers, he hobbled down towards the sea to bathe before beginning his ‘day of prayer and fasting’. Thanks in part to an editorial in the Bombay Chronicle that said: ‘If you value your freedom, you will join,’ the crowds surpassed even Gandhi’s expectations. The press described the turnout as ‘a solid mass of humanity gathering strength on the way’.16 Undeterred by the violent outbreaks in Delhi the previous week, families brought their small children out to pray with Gandhi and show solidarity with those who had been shot dead. The wall of white cotton-clad men gathered around Gandhi was punctuated by a colourful ruffle of saris, blowing in the sea breeze.

  Too weak to deliver his own speech, one of his followers read from a piece of paper Gandhi had penned in his characteristically chaotic handwriting. In it, Gandhi rejected the official account of the events in Delhi, describing the actions of the British against an unarmed and peaceful crowd as ‘vindictive’. His audience listened in reverential silence. Gandhi brought Bombay to a complete standstill.

  PUNJAB, 6 APRIL 1919

  In Punjab, the action spread beyond the towns and cities, with rural areas also answering Gandhi’s call. Lawyers, labourers, farm and factory workers, teachers and students all downed tools to join the protest. One journalist, particularly struck by how many women joined the strike in otherwise ultra-conservative areas, commented: ‘In one village called Sanghoi, women joined the protest with a religious zeal, fasting and chanting Gandhi’s name, and deploring the Rowlatt Act.’17

  The Amritsar strikers were heartened when news reached them that, in Lahore, the home of the sirkar (government) and Sir Michael O’Dwyer, tens of thousands of their brothers and sisters had rallied to Gandhi’s call. Despite an overwhelming military presence, Muslims and Hindus had joined together to bathe in the river Ravi before sunrise and together they had recited prayers. According to press reports, their religious mantras were peppered with political slogans.18

  The fact that these ‘prayers’ could be heard from Governor House and not one bullet was fired as a result led protestors to believe that the British had learned from the mistakes of Delhi and 30 March. The massive hartal in Punjab passed off without a single report of violence. The worst that could be said was that crowds in Lahore ‘hissed’ and ‘hooted’19 at the British.

  Indians might have believed that the lieutenant governor was similarly impressed with their restraint, but Michael O’Dwyer was seeing a very different picture. He saw before him only mutiny: ‘The orders regarding public meetings were openly defied, menacing crowds with black flags paraded the streets, and only the presence of a large body of British and Indian troops, including cavalry, with machine-guns prevented them from forcing their way into European quarters.’20

  The unity between Hindus and Muslims shook him most of all. ‘Divide and rule’ was a tried and tested policy of colonial governance. If Indians now refused to be divided, how should they be ruled?

  * * *

  * According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Basra Memorial commemorates more than 40,620 servicemen of the British Empire who died in Mesopotamia and have no known grave. More than 33,250 of those commemorated served with the Indian Army.

  Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery contains the graves and memorials of more than 6,880 British Empire servicemen of the First World War, of whom more than 2,720 remain unidentified.

  Amara (Left Bank) Indian War Cemetery commemorates some 5,000 servicemen of the Indian Army, of whom only nine are identified. No comprehensive records of the burials were kept by military authorities.

  * Slang for white man – particularly used pejoratively for the British.

  CHAPTER 7

  ELEPHANTS AND TWIGS

  Sir Michael, a lover of Persian poetry, had a particular fondness for one couplet:

  Sar-i-chashma ba bayad firiftan b’a mil

  Chi pur shud na shayad guzushtan ba fil.

  You can stop a spring with a twig.

  Let it flow unchecked, and an elephant cannot cross it.

  In other words: act early, act decisively, show strength, or risk being swept away.

  On 4 April, two days before the spectacular defiance across India, Sir Michael had attempted to lay his twigs ordering Gandhi to be banned from entering his Punjab. In direct defiance of his order, on 9 April the Mahatma was on his way, invited by Satyapal and Kitchlew.

  The north had been clamouring to hear from the Mahatma for months, and Satyapal and Kitchlew had begged him to come to explain his doctrine of non-violenc
e directly to the masses. Without him, they worried the outpouring of emotions unleashed by the two days of action might morph into something they could not control. From his rocking compartment on the train, Gandhi reviewed the speeches he intended to give. One was aimed at the people of Delhi, the other for Amritsar; both would encourage participation but preach restraint. As the train pulled into Palwal station, a relatively small, rundown place on the border of Punjab province, the police, on Sir Michael’s orders, were waiting: ‘I was served with a written order to the effect that I was prohibited from entering the boundary of Punjab, because my presence there was likely to result in a disturbance of the peace.’1

  Gandhi had no intention of turning back. In his reedy but uncompromising voice, he told the police he was going to Punjab no matter what their warrant said: ‘I want to go to the Punjab in response to a pressing invitation not to foment unrest but to allay it.’2

  An officer placed his hand on Gandhi’s shoulder. ‘Mr Gandhi, I arrest you,’ and with that he was forced off the train, escorted across the platform and onto another back to Bombay. Armed escort would accompany him for the rest of the journey, just in case he got off again and tried another way in.

  News of the arrest rippled out from Palwal in a matter of hours, causing disruption as far afield as Ahmedabad, almost 600 miles away. A city of textile production, as soon as residents heard news of Gandhi’s arrest, men downed tools, mills closed, and the streets filled with rage. Ahmedabadis were overwhelmingly ethnic Gujaratis, like Gandhi himself. He was their greatest son.

  Rumours swirled: Gandhi had been hurt by the police; Gandhi had been deported; Gandhi was to be hanged. Predictably, the situation turned very ugly very quickly. The Bombay presidency despatched armed reinforcements as widespread reports of violence flooded in. But the tide was rising faster than the British could have dreamed possible.

  By lunchtime, Ahmedabad’s cinema was on fire and two British mill supervisors named Sagar and Steeples had been pulled from their vehicles as they attempted to cross town. The men were stoned and pursued on foot as they ran for cover. Though they escaped, an Indian policeman trying to protect them was thrown from a balcony, his broken body beaten to death.3

  By three o’clock, the entire city was in chaos. Pockets of police found themselves besieged, saved only when armoured vehicles came to their aid. By 5 p.m., thousands of protestors had surrounded a mill at the Prem Gate in the north-east of the city. Indian barristers and pleaders, followers of Gandhi and members of his non-violent satyagraha movement rushed to the worst scenes, putting themselves between the mob and the trapped, begging their countrymen to stop.

  They read out a statement by Gandhi himself, pleading with the crowds to stay calm. He was fine. There was no need for this. He did not want this. The words seemed to have the desired effect and the crowds dispersed by dusk. Although Ahmedabad cooled, sparks had already been thrown thousands of miles away, and Sir Michael appeared to be fanning them into an inferno.

  Even before the first signs of violence in Ahmedabad on 9 April, Sir Michael ordered the arrest and deportation of Dr Satyapal and Dr Kitchlew, the very men who had ensured that protests in his province had been peaceful. He would later claim that he had been forced to act on reports from his man on the ground, the deputy commissioner Miles Irving. In truth, Sir Michael had been a tightly coiled spring ever since Lord Hardinge had first appointed him, whispering words of congratulations and warning in his ear.

  Usually a ‘gentle and quiet man’,4 Irving ‘spent most of his working life in the Punjab, living and breathing its ideals of paternalism and tradition’,5 but his unease in Amritsar had been growing exponentially since the satyagraha on 6 April. Though the day had passed peacefully, a religious festival was fast approaching his city – Ram Naumi on 9 April – which Irving believed might be the flashpoint. The festival marked the birth of Lord Rama, one of the pantheon of Hindu gods. It was usually celebrated by peaceful, saffron-clad processions, which marched good-naturedly through the streets as Muslims and Sikhs looked on from the sidelines. However, something unnerving was happening in Amritsar that Irving could neither stop nor understand. The creeds were uniting. There was talk of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus joining together for this year’s Ram Naumi parade, and this, in his view, made the situation incendiary.

  On 8 April, Irving had written to Lahore warning of his ‘very grave concern’ that Amritsar was on the brink of disaster. The level of Hindu–Muslim unity was new to his city. He described Satyapal and Kitchlew as troublemakers. Kitchlew in particular, Irving said, was a ‘local agent of very much bigger men’.6 Irving asked for immediate reinforcements. Motor-machine gun units, too, if Lahore could spare them:

  I think that we shall have to stand up for our authority sooner or later by prohibiting some strike or procession which endangers the public peace. But for this a really strong force will have to be brought in and we shall have to be ready to try conclusions to the end to see who governs Amritsar.7

  The letter confirmed what Sir Michael already believed. A mutiny was brewing, and it was showing every sign of starting in his province. This was his problem to solve and he was more than up to the task.

  Just as Irving predicted, on Ram Naumi day, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims walked with their arms entwined. To Irving’s horror they even drank out of the same water vessels, usually an anathema to both religions, and one that Hindus historically believed compromised their place in the cycle of karmic reincarnation.

  Making matters worse, amid the usual singing and clapping Irving had clearly heard cries of ‘Hindu Mussalman ki Jai’ and ‘Gandhi-ji ki Jai’ – ‘Long live the Hindu–Muslim brotherhood’ and ‘Long Live Gandhi’. Though the processions passed entirely peacefully, Irving was convinced this was the calm before a terrible storm. Sitting in Lahore, Sir Michael felt the same way. With Gandhi’s deportation already being taken care of, Irving was given permission to arrest Satyapal and Kitchlew.

  AMRITSAR, 10 APRIL 1919

  Ten o’clock was a civilised hour to hold a morning meeting. It gave a man time to wake up, wash and have his breakfast leisurely. It allowed food to be digested in an acceptable fashion and left the rest of the day to parley in a reasonable way. Civilised men met at ten o’clock.

  Satyapal and Kitchlew were still bathing in the success of the Ram Naumi marches when they arrived at Miles Irving’s bungalow, a smart, whitewashed building nestled within well-tended gardens in Amritsar’s Civil Lines cantonment. The men were in good spirits. They thought they had been called to discuss the ban on Gandhi and hoped to convince Irving that the Mahatma’s message of nonviolence was precisely the kind of intervention he should welcome. It would help them in their continued efforts to keep the peace.

  When an officer politely asked Satyapal’s and Kitchlew’s two companions to wait outside on the veranda, neither objected. They were guests; to do so would have been rude. They watched their leaders go in, not knowing that as soon as the door closed behind them, the solicitous smiles disappeared and Satyapal and Kitchlew were handed warrants for their immediate arrest and deportation. They were taken to waiting cars outside, which had their engines running.

  An armed escort sped Satyapal and Kitchlew towards Dharamshala in Nepal, where they would be detained until further notice. No trial, no appeal, not even the opportunity to inform their friends on the veranda.

  Still waiting patiently, Satyapal’s and Kitchlew’s companions had no idea that the vehicles racing away from the cantonment had anything to do with them. Only after Satyapal and Kitchlew were far enough away did an officer, less polite than the one who had welcomed them, come out. He handed them hastily penned notes from their leaders, intended for their families, and told them to get off the property and leave the cantonment without delay.

  In a state of shock, the pair raced back to the old city to spread the word. The British had tricked them: their leaders had been kidnapped, and for all they knew, they might be hanged by nightfall. As news of Satya
pal’s and Kitchlew’s arrest spread, crowds gathered in front of Hall Gate, more in incredulity than anger. Lawyer colleagues of Kitchlew suggested a deputation should go and ask Irving what had happened. He was a reasonable man; there must be an explanation. Perhaps they would be released later. Perhaps they were still inside talking. Hundreds fell in line behind the pleaders and a crowd made its way towards Civil Lines.

  The cantonment could only be reached by two bridges crossing the railway tracks and Irving had already posted men at both. As a growing number reached the first narrow bridge, they found a company of twelve British and Indian soldiers on horseback blocking their path. The sight of their picquet caused the first ripple of rage. This had been premeditated. Satyapal and Kitchlew were nowhere in sight. They were gone, and the men who had done this were now hiding behind horses and guns.

  By 11.30 a.m., vast crowds gathered at Aitchison Park started streaming towards the second bridge. As Miles Irving recalled: ‘They were very noisy, a furious crowd; you could hear the roar of them half way up the long road; they were an absolutely mad crowd, spitting with rage and swearing and throwing stones.’8

  Indian eyewitnesses tell a very different story. They concede that the crowds grew rapidly, but insist they were, at first, entirely reasonable. A tense hush descended on Hall Bridge as people strained to hear the lawyers arguing with the magistrates and soldiers.

  Mian Feroz Din, one of the lawyers at the front of the impromptu Indian delegation, told a later inquiry that ‘The people were barefooted and bareheaded and unarmed, without even sticks in their hands.’9 Violence came suddenly, without warning, and without Satyapal and Kitchlew to stem it.